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Advances in JS-based font creation technologies and tools

Frederik De Bleser, Louis‑Rémi Babé
ATypI 2016 • Warsaw, Poland
NiNA

Font creation technologies have so far largely been written in C or Python and offered to users as desktop applications or command line tools. Since 2014, the library OpenType.js has been able to parse and generate OpenType fonts in environments supporting JavaScript. JavaScript is one of the most popular scripting language and is supported across wide variety of environments: web browsers, Illustrator add-ons and desktop or mobile applications. This session will present a brief overview of OpenType.js, it’s current features and limitations. We will then review some tools that use it (FontSelf, Glyphr Studio, NodeBox Live, Metapolator and Prototypo) and highlight interesting usages that OpenType.js has made possible. Finally, we’ll talk about the future of the library and its ecosystem.